2010/9/24 Albert Y. C. Lai <tre...@vex.net>: > On 10-09-23 04:57 PM, Andrew Coppin wrote: >> >> If you think that sounds silly, ask some random person (not a computer >> programmer, just some random human) how find the sum of a list of >> numbers. > > My reply: to sum 10 numbers, sum 9 numbers, then account for the 10th. More > at: > http://groups.google.com/group/comp.lang.functional/msg/51df24fbf33b7059 > > Ask some random person how to find page 314 in a book. No one replies "check > the 1st page, check the 2nd page, check the 3rd page...". In fact, no one > replies in words. Almost everyone shows you how to cut to the middle or the > estimated weighted middle (if the book seems to have 1000 pages, they cut > near the one-third point), then say "oh, before this" or "oh, after this", > repeat. Almost everyone divides and conquers. Almost everyone recurses. > > I am not a computer programmer. > > (I know that someone is bound to think, "when confronted with the problem of > summing numbers, some people think, 'I know, I will divide and conquer'. Now > they have two problems of summing numbers.")
A computer scientist knows how to count the stars in the sky: simply count half of them then multiply by two. -- or something like that. _______________________________________________ Haskell-Cafe mailing list Haskell-Cafe@haskell.org http://www.haskell.org/mailman/listinfo/haskell-cafe